Regulatory authority

A regulatory authority is an independent and disaggregated public sector organization entrusted with specialized tasks to regulate the economic activity (Bevir, 2007). These public organizations have spread worldwide during recent decades in hand with the wave of privatization in different sectors of the economy and with the increasing demand for social and environmental protection (Balleisen, 2015). Regulatory authorities could take different governance structures e.g., some are headed by an executive board, some by a single administrator, some as an extension to ministries while some others enjoying protection from ad-hoc modifications (Coglianese, 2022). 

The first agencies were born in the 1880s to encourage competition in the railway and electricity sector in the U.S. being the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) the first one to be recognized by the Congress. According to Maggetti et al. (2022), the first wave of regulatory authorities happened after privatization and de-regulation of public utilities. During this period, agencies were entrusted with the enforcement of antitrust and competition laws. The second wave started in the 1960s and led by the European Union, focused on social regulation including sectors such as health, labour, and the environment. Finally, Maggetti et al. (2022), argue that the recent third wave is characterized by regulatory responses to the emerging digital technologies. The latest innovation in regulatory policies pretends to deal with the use of big data, algorithms in the private sector, cryptocurrencies, blockchains, and artificial intelligence applications (Yeung & Lodge, 2019).  

Modern regulatory authorities can be distinguished between sector-specific regulators and economic competition authorities. The former is usually concerned with the quality and societal impacts while the latter focuses on problems related to the prices of goods and services in the entire economy. This heterogenous ecosystem of regulatory bodies together with their impact in many distinct aspects of the economic life have raised concerns on how to understand and improve regulatory management practices (Coglianese, 2022). 

Some examples of regulatory authorities worldwide are the following: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S., the French Autorité de Régulation des Communications Électroniques et des Postes (ARCEP), the Italian Autorità Nazionale Anticorruzione (ANAC), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI), or the Agência Nacional de Energia Elétrica in Brazil.